Guenther Steiner has rarely been a fan of diplomatic answers, and his latest verdict on Ferrari's medium-term driver line-up follows form.
On the latest Red Flags podcast, in the regular 'Gas or Brake' segment in which Steiner is asked to instantly approve or veto a paddock proposition, he was asked the obvious one: should Oliver Bearman replace Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari?
"Gas!" Steiner replied.
It was a single word but it lands inside a febrile context. Hamilton's first season with Ferrari has been an uphill slog, with public complaints about the SF26's power unit and tyre window now a regular feature of race weekend coverage. Italian media speculation about an early Hamilton retirement, including a much-reported but unconfirmed claim that he might announce it at the British Grand Prix, has hardened into a full speculation cycle.
Steiner believes the conclusion will arrive naturally.
"At some stage Hamilton will say he's had enough, and Bearman is ready for Ferrari," he said.
The Steiner endorsement carries real weight. He ran Bearman through the British driver's loan years at Haas and has consistently rated him as a future Ferrari race seat candidate. In earlier interviews Steiner has called him an obvious candidate for the second Ferrari, and his Red Flags comments simply tighten the timeline.
The internal Ferrari logic appears to support him. Charles Leclerc is locked in as the long-term lead driver, but the second seat has always been the more political slot at Maranello. Bearman remains contracted to the Ferrari Driver Academy and has first refusal in Maranello's medium-term planning, and he has just locked down his Haas 2026 commitment by stripping away what he himself calls the rookie tag.
Not everyone is rushing Hamilton out of the door. McLaren CEO Zak Brown publicly declined to feed the speculation, and David Coulthard has cautioned that Hamilton's race-craft and experience could still play a stabilising role for the Scuderia as it claws back from a difficult start to the new regulation cycle. The flip side is that the Italian press, sensing a sustainable storyline, has begun to brief that internal patience is running out.
Hamilton himself has not signalled any retirement plan publicly, but the seven-time world champion has been markedly more candid this year about how unenjoyable he is finding the SF26 at its worst. His own words after Japan, where he described the car as 'pretty terrible' to drive on a damp Sunday, have echoed through the paddock more loudly than his strongest defenders would like.
Steiner's job in all of this is essentially to be the bluntest voice in the room, and his Red Flags answer fits the brief.
Bearman, currently in his second Haas season under the Ferrari Driver Academy banner, has so far kept his head down and let the lap times do the lobbying for him. But one of the loudest voices in the paddock now believes that the conversation is no longer if, but when.
